If You Look Up Rape In This Textbook, You’ll See A Picture Of Brock Turner

In March of 2016, former Stanford swimmer Brock Turner was convicted of three felony counts of sexual assault. Yay for the conviction, but Turner was sentenced to only six months in prison because the presiding judge, Aaron Persky, reportedly thought prison would have “a negative impact” on him. But the cherry on top of that shit sundae is that Turner only served three months of his sentence. Three months for raping an unconscious woman behind a dumpster. The authors behind a criminal justice textbook weren’t content to let Turner off that easy, and placed his mugshot in the “rape” section.

Hannah Shuman, who studies criminal justice at Washington State University, was looking through her Criminal Justice 101 text when she discovered Turner’s mugshot.

Yep, that’s Brock Turner’s face right next to the definition of rape. The text even includes details about the case. Turner was convicted on three felony counts: assault with intent to commit rape of an intoxicated or unconscious person, sexual penetration of an intoxicated person, and sexual penetration of an unconscious person.

Jezebel reached out to the textbook’s authors, Mary Dodge and Callie Rennison, but they declined to comment. Rennison focuses on Victimology, the study of the victims of crime and the psychological effects on them of their experience. In an interview conducted after Rennison was awarded the 2016 Bonnie S. Fisher Victimology Career Award, she explained her approach to the textbook.

“Existing criminal justice books have focused on three elements: cops, courts, and corrections. They speak little about victims, reflecting how they have effectively been in the shadows of our criminal justice system. In our book, victims are front and center with equal emphasis as cops, courts, and corrections. This is the way it should be.”